The leader of one group of missionaries (Eugene) writes to the leader of another group of missionaries (Forbin Janson) and shares professional advice. The occasion is the preaching visit of Brother Hilaire from Janson’s institute, the Missionaries of France.
Eugene emphasises his foundational principles on the quality of missionaries: they must “be” in order to “do.” The quality of their personal lives is more important than their ability to preach.
We have considered ourselves very fortunate to be able to extend our hospitality to the good brother Hilaire. I would wish that everyone of your group be of his kind, which is ours too; but I have reason to believe that much has to be done to achieve this. If I were you, I would aim at somewhat less brilliance and I would insist more on soundness.
Of what use are fine speeches if one is conceited? Humility, the spirit of abnegation, obedience, etc., and the utmost in the way of fraternal charity are also necessary for the good order and the happiness of a Society. Not all your people have properly understood that. I attribute this failing to a certain necessity wherein you find yourself to accept men capable of preaching.
Eugene puts this principle into action. Referring to the expulsion of Icard, he proudly asserts that the remaining Missionaries are the best priests of the diocese!
Here we agree on no such arrangements. We were six. Of these six, one did not have the spirit of a man of the Church. He did poor work. We asked him to withdraw. Our community is very fervent. There are no better priests throughout the diocese.
The lessons learnt by Eugene in his exhaustion of some months earlier shows in his concern for others not taking care of themselves:
Hilaire will give our young people a retreat of eight days in preparation of the Feast of All Saints. I hope it will have a good effect. I will see that he does not exhaust himself too much but I warn you about him generally: he does not take enough care of himself. At Marseilles, he preached up to three times a day. He does not have the constitution for that. If care is not taken, he will perish as a victim of his zeal.
Letter to Forbin Janson, 9 October 1816, O.W. VI n. 14
I am reminded of the eloquence and heart of Eugene’s first Lenten Homily, in the Church of the Madeleine in Aix. His zeal and love were there in every word he shared with his heart. He knew it to be the absolute truth. He also knew what it was like to demand to much from his body and the need for rest and nourishment. Zeal alone was not enough… Doing was something that flowed from the being into life and not the other way around.
I think that Eugene here is shares the pitfalls that we can often step into in. There have been many times throughout my life when I have been doing “good” things, but where it was less from the heart and perhaps more from my mind and my own ego, from my need to be ‘as good as’ if not ‘better’ than others around me” allowing my woundedness to over-take me as I tried to prove how good I am. Humility can sometimes be so fleeting in the midst of an egoic onslaught.
I have loved Eugene since I first experienced hearing him say “stand at the foot of your crucifix…” a stance that I had learned many years before meeting Eugene. A place from which I was then able to learn and grow, to be nourished and begin to allow God to use me to help nourish others as I journey as a pilgrim of hope in communion.
And so I come here each day, to stand in the light that Eugene sheds. I come to re-orient myself by and within a community where God has planted me. It is how I share possible ways of bringing Eugene’s words into the current times; into a world where nothing and everything has changed and to remain relevant rather than living just in a wounded past.